Short Abstract

This panel explores how cooperation persists, adapts, or fails in a polarised world. From kinship and reciprocity to activism and intergenerational ties, we invite anthropologists to reflect on the meanings, limits, and possibilities of cooperation across diverse contexts.

Long Abstract

In an era marked by deepening political, social, and moral divides, the question of how and with whom humans cooperate has become increasingly urgent. This panel seeks to re-engage anthropology with the study of cooperation in times of polarisation–not as a taken-for-granted good, but as a contested field of power, ethics, and imagination. We ask: What forms of cooperation remain possible when the social fabric is overwhelmingly strained by conflict, inequality, and mistrust? What cooperative practices develop in competitive and individualizing neoliberal regimes—whether in markets, workplaces, or academia? How do people cultivate solidarity and shared purpose within and across fractured social worlds, generations, or species? How can anthropology itself serve as a space of cooperative thought—bridging difference, fostering understanding, and imagining possibilities in a polarised world?

Building on anthropology’s long-standing concern with reciprocity, kinship, and social cohesion (e.g. Mauss 1925; Graeber 2002; Tsing 2015; Ferguson 2015; Haraway 2016), we invite contributions that examine cooperation as both a lived practice and an analytical concept. Papers may draw from ethnographic case studies, exploring familial solidarity, intergenerational care, neighbourhood alliances, activist networks, interspecies collaboration and beyond, or offer theoretical interventions into how cooperation operates within or against structures of globalised societies. We are particularly interested in how cooperation articulates with or challenges contemporary crises—climate change, migration, digital divides, and political fragmentation. By bringing together scholars working across diverse sites and traditions, this panel aims to foster dialogue on the limits, transformations, and potential futures of cooperation.

This Panel has 1 pending paper proposal.
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